Life in the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

The first western journalist in the world to be allowed extensive access to Isis territories in Syria and Iraq has returned from the region with a warning: the group is "much stronger and much more dangerous" than anyone in the west realises.

Jurgen Todenhofer, 74, is a renowned German journalist and publicist who travelled through Turkey to Mosul, the largest city occupied by Isis, after months of negotiations with the group's leaders.

He plans to publish a summary of his "10 days in the Islamic State" on Monday, but in interviews with German-language media outlets has revealed his first impressions of what life is like under Isis.

Speaking to the website Der tz, Todenhofer revealed that he actually stayed in the same hotel in Benghazi as James Foley, the US journalist who was beheaded on camera by Isis in August.

"Of course, I've seen the terrible, brutal video and it was one of my main concerns during the negotiations as to how I can avoid (the same fate)," he said.

Once within Isis territory, Todenhofer said his strongest impression was "that Isis is much stronger than we think here". He said it now has "dimensions larger than the UK", and is supported by "an almost ecstatic enthusiasm that I have never encountered in any other warzone".

"Each day, hundreds of willing fighters arrive from all over the world," he told tz. "For me it is incomprehensible."

Todenhofer claims to have been able to move among Isis fighters, observing their living conditions and equipment. On his Facebook page, he has posted images which he said show German Heckler & Koch MG3 machine guns in the hands of Isis. "Someday this German MG could be directed to us," he said.

Isis's fighters themselves sleep, he said, in barracks formed from "the shells of bombed-out houses". They number around 5,000 in Mosul, and are spread so widely that were the US to bomb them all "they would have to reduce the whole of Mosul to ruins", he said.

Todenhofer says that this ultimately means Isis cannot be beaten by Western intervention or air strikes - despite US claims last week that they have proven effective. "With every bomb that is dropped and hits a civilian, the number of terrorists increases," he said.

Speaking in a TV interview with RTL's Nachtjournal programme two days after his return to Germany last week, Todenhofer said Isis has worked hard to establish itself as a functioning state. He said it has "social welfare", a "school system", and that he was even surprised to see it has plans to provide education to girls.

Most concerning of all, he said, was Isis fighters' belief that "all religions who agree with democracy have to die".

He said the view that kept being repeated was that Isis want to "conquer the world" and all who do not believe in the group's interpretation of the Quran will be killed. The only other religions to be spared, Todenhofer said, were the "people of the book" — Jews and Christians.

"This is the largest religious cleansing strategy that has ever been planned in human history", he told RTL.

Charlie Winter, a researcher for the anti-extremism thinktank Quilliam, said such comments about Isis being "a group that is formidable militarily and politically" were quoted by pro-Isis accounts because it is "a bitter pill for policymakers to swallow".

"That said, Todenhofer's comments on the massacre of the Yazidis and displacement of hundreds of thousands in Mosul have been routinely ignored by Isis supporters," Mr Winter said. "The facts are being cherry-picked to give a very narrow view of the situation that Todenhofer was met with in Syria and Iraq."

Todenhofer plans to use his first-hand experience of Isis in a book he is writing about the group. He says on Facebook that he has always "spoken to both sides" in his 50 years reporting from war zones, including interviews with Syria's President Bashar al-Assad and al-Qaida, with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai and with leaders of the Taliban.

In his view, Isis will soon come to the west to negotiate a level of co-existence. "The only ones who could stop this now are the moderate Iraqi Sunnis," he said, adding: "If you want to defeat an opponent, you must know him."

Isis has executed at least 150 women for refusing to marry militants in Iraq, Turkish media has reported.

A statement released by the country's Ministry of Human Rights on Tuesday said the militants had attacked women in the western Iraqi province of Al-Anbar before burying them in mass graves in Fallujah.

Some of the women killed were pregnant at the time, according to the Anadolu Agency.

"At least 150 females, including pregnant women, were executed in Fallujah by a militant named Abu Anas Al-Libi after they refused to accept jihad marriage," the statement said.

"Many families were also forced to migrate from the province's northern town of Al-Wafa after hundreds of residents received death threats."

Isis has overrun a large part of the western Anbar province in its push to expand its territory across swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The executions come after the militant group shot dead at least 50 men, women and children in a tribe massacre in the province last month.

The attack against the Al Bu Nimr tribe took place in the village of Ras al-Maa, north of Ramadi, the provincial capital. There, the militant group killed at least 40 men, six women and four children.

A senior tribesman said they were lined up and publicly killed one by one. An official within the Anbar governor's office corroborated the tribesman's account, according to The Associated Press.

Isis also recently published what appeared to be an "abhorrent" pamphlet providing its followers with guidelines on how to capture, keep and sexually abuse female slaves.

A Yazidi girl captured by ISIS has revealed the extreme abuse she suffers as a sex slave at the hands of Islamic State (IS) extremists.

Only 17 years old, Mayat, (not her real name) was kidnapped by members of ISIS on 3rd August during an offensive against Sinjar. She remains with her captors.

These men allowed Mayat, who speaks some English as she wanted to study in Europe, to talk because, "to hurt us even more, they told us to describe in detail to our parents what they are doing."

Her parents, refugees in Kurdistan, gave their daughter's number to a journalist from Italian paper La Repubblica.

The teenage girl begs her interviewer not to name her because: "I am ashamed of what they have done to me.

"Part of me would like to die immediately, to sink beneath the ground and say there. But another part that still hopes to be saved, and to be able to hug my parents once more."

One of around 40 women and young girls held by the extremists in an unknown city, Mayat estimates their ages as anything from 12 to 30.

"What are they doing to me?" She says, "I am too ashamed to say, and I don't even know how to describe my torture."

In the interview Mayat describes how the women and girls are kept in a house under armed guards.

There are, she says, three "rooms of horror" where the women are raped, often by different men and throughout the day.

"They treat us like slaves. We are always 'given' to different men. Some arrive straight from Syria," she says.

ISIS has made huge territorial gains across northern Iraq and parts of Syria, capturing thousands of women and children according to an Amnesty International report last month.

"They threaten us and beat us if we try to resist. Often I wish they would beat me so hard I will die. But they are cowards even in this. None of them have the courage to end our suffering."

Mayat says some of the youngest girls have stopped talking because of the abuse and were taken away by their captors. Many of the women have attempted to end their lives.

"Sometimes I feel as though it will never end. And if it did, my life would remain forever scarred by the torture I have suffered the past few weeks," Mayat says. "Even if I survive, I don't think I'll be able to remove this horror from my mind."

Mayat's story contradicts previous claims from ISIS which purport to show life under the Islamic State, highlighting their care of widows and children.

Earlier today the British government promised to donate guns and ammunition to Iraq to fight the insurgency.

Amid concerns of terrorism president Barack Obama has promised to address the American people tomorrow on efforts to "degrade and destroy" ISIS.

Mayat finished by saying: "They have already killed my body. They are now killing my soul."

ISIS have beheaded four Christian children in Iraq for refusing to convert to Islam, a British vicar based in the country has claimed.

Canon Andrew White, who is known as the 'vicar of Baghdad', told Orthodox Christian Network that the killings happened in a Christian enclave close to Baghdad which has been taken over by ISIS (formerly known as Islamic State).

He spoke of how ISIS has "hounded" the Christians out of Iraq, and how "they killed in huge numbers, they chopped their children in half, they chopped their heads off, and they moved north and it was so terrible what happened".

He told the network that militants "came to one of our people the other day, one of the Christians".

"They said to one man, an adult, 'Either you say the words of conversion to Islam or we kill all your children'.

"He was desperate, he said the words. And then he phoned me, and said, 'Abouna [Father], I said the words, does that mean that Yeshua doesn't' love me anymore?' I said, 'Yeshua still loves you, he will always love you".

Canon White claimed that the children who were beheaded had refused to "follow Mohammed".

"ISIS turned up and said to the children, 'You say the words that you will follow Mohammed'."

"The children, all under 15, four of them, said no, we love Yeshua, we have always loved we have always followed Yeshua, Yeshua has always been with us.

"They said: 'Say the words.' They said 'No, we can't.' They chopped all their heads off. How do you respond to that? You just cry."

Canon White said that ISIS were threatening to kill him, and that he is now living in Israel, following orders from the Archbishop of Canterbury to leave Iraq. He said that most of his staff are still in the north of Iraq trying to look after displaced Christians.

The ISIS extremist group has executed 100 of its own foreign fighters who tried to flee their headquarters in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Financial Times reported on Saturday. 

An activist opposed to ISIS and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, said he had "verified 100 executions" of foreign ISIS fighters trying to leave the jihadi group's de facto capital. ISIS fighters in Raqqa said the group has a military police to clamp down on foreign fighters who miss duty. Dozens of homes have been raided and many jihadis have been arrested, the FT reported. The British press reported in October that 12 Europeans wanted to return home complaining they did not end up fighting Assad's regime.

Homeland - The US Pakistan saga

The United States has broken off diplomatic ties with Pakistan following a terrorist attack by the ISI-backed Haqqani group on the American Embassy in Islamabad in which some 40 American diplomats and personnel were killed. All American diplomatic personnel have been evacuated from Islamabad and the US President has ordered the nuclear-armed Fifth Fleet towards Karachi.

If you sat bolt upright and spilled coffee on reading the para above, you haven't been watching the television drama Homeland's Season 4, now into its 11th episode. After spending three seasons in the middle-east, Homeland, featuring a psychotic female CIA operative in the lead, has moved into Pakistan, often portraying the frayed US-Pakistan ties with startling accuracy, and as evident from this lead, with some hyperbole.

Pakistan's worthless, paranoid existence, its dalliance with terrorists groups, including its coddling of the Haqqani Group (who attack the US Embassy after inside information leaked by the compromised husband of the US ambassador), its spy agency ISI's treachery and double-dealing, Washington's own bumbling inter-agency fights, all feature in the action drama that has even spookdom — among nearly two million first time US viewers — in thrall.

But the constant feeling that courses through the hit series is the utter contempt and revulsion for Pakistan in Washington. "It's not even a real country. It's a fucking acronym!" sneers the CIA chief, calling Pakistan a "shithole" when Carrie Mathison, his principal agent, asks to be posted to Islamabad as station chief "They hate us. All they want is to stab us in the back," he spits out another time. In another episode, when a colleague tells Carrie the information came from the ISI, she snaps, "I don't trust the fuckers."

Incidentally, the two-faced, double-dealing ISI officer in the drama is played by the Indian actress Nimrat Kaur, who acted as a homemaker in The Lunchbox. In fact, most Pakistani principals in the serial are played by Indians or Brit-Asians. The serial was shot in South Africa.

So how close to reality is Homeland? The broad themes are all well-known and oft-recited in Washington: Pakistan's fostering of terrorism, ISI's double-dealing, the centrality of the army and intelligence in Pakistan, the ineffectualness of its democracy, etc. Where the series gets it right is the nitty-gritty, including drone attacks, suicide bombings, and a street shooting escapade that is redolent of the Raymond Davis episode.

Developed by the Israeli writer-director Gideon Raff, Homeland's screenplay is crafted by a team of experienced American writers. The serial's maker, Showtime, ostensibly hired former CIA operatives as consultants. Two former CIA agents, who between them boast of 60 years of operational experience and served as station chiefs in seven countries, reviewed the Season 4 finale in the Daily Beast last week and concluded that it has been able to "accurately present the mission, intensity, pace, contradictions and complexity of a CIA station."

Maintaining that the CIA protagonists portrayed in the serial "rings true to those us who have been there," the agents, Chuck Cogan and John MacGaffin, also underlined the difficulties in the fictional Islamabad station chief Carrie Mathison's attempts at dealing "a duplicitous host government and liaison service whose real interests and intent differs from hers."

"In reality, there is no such thing as a 'friendly' intelligence service. ISI, however, is the poster child for 'duplicitous,'" they added.

While Pakistan gets trashed in Homeland, in reality, the US approach to Pakistan and its intelligence agency, far from being castigatory or punitive, is feckless to the point of embarrassing. Despite repeatedly and even publicly admonishing Pakistan for supporting terror groups, and even citing ISI hand in the Mumbai attacks and for funneling money into the US political system (through the Kashmiri separatist Ghulam Nabi Fai), Washington has done little to reign in the terror-backing spy outfit and its proteges. This is evident given the ease with which Hafiz Saeed and now Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi have been protected by the Pakistani establishment.

In fact, according to ProPublica, former Pakistani army chief Ashfaq Kayani bluntly rejected the request of his American interlocutors to divest Lakhvi of his cellphone in prison. As if to rub it in, they even allowed him conjugal visits in jail through which he fathered a child, say Indian sources familiar with the developments, adding, with a degree of envy, that the "Pakistanis run rings around Americans." The Indian side also believes that successive Pakistani Army chiefs have made fools of Americans by alternately adopting an attitude of complete submission or threatening a reckless suicide scenario.

Every Pakistani general is greeted by Washington as a liberal, westernized, professional soldier, just because he plays golf or smokes or has pet dogs, one Indian official said in a recent conversation, recalling the glowing, credulous profiles in the US media that accompanied the ascension of Musharraf and Kayani. Every Pakistani general is a jihadi because it is written into their DNA and their motto Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah, the official added bleakly.

It was against this background that the Indian side closely watched the visit last month of Pakistan's new army chief Gen Raheel Sharif, once again hailed by Pakistani apologists as a man who would take on terrorists. It was an unusual visit by any standard, lasting more than two weeks. Prefaced by ratcheted up coverage in the Pakistan media of an imminent ISIS (Islamic State) takeover of the country (and "scarily," its nukes), the trip was aimed ostensibly at repairing damaged relations with the US, and more importantly to extract money from Uncle Sam, long time patron of its informally designated terrorist client state on whom it has already splurged $ 28 billion sine 9/11.

The visit, which lasted the entire second half of November, got even more mysterious when after a few pro-forma meetings in Washington, a Pentagon ceremony to receive one of those feel-good medals the US hangs on its favored third world generals, a visit to the Central Command in Miami, and an engagement in the Bay Area, Sharif disappeared from view. He didn't go back home, and he dispensed with official protocol in America. The scuttlebutt was he was visiting a sibling or son in the Chicago area.

When he surfaced again at the end of the month, it was for an unusual weekend meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry, a long time patron saint of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. In an engagement that effectively recognized the military as the de facto power in the country, Kerry, without a trace of irony, praised the Pakistani army as a "truly binding force," forgetting, perhaps in a senior moment, that the force actually lost half the country in 1971.

Co-author of a legislation that lavished billions of dollars on Pakistan throughout the years the country fostered terrorist groups, often killing US soldiers in Afghanistan, Kerry evokes mixed feelings among Indian interlocutors. On surface, he is affable and charming with Indian officials and speaks highly of India (he's headed for the Vibrant Gujarat summit in January). But his inexplicable support for Pakistan even when it is brazenly using terrorism as a policy instrument according to the administration's own insiders is something that baffles Indian officials, none of whom would speak on record.

In fact, Kerry's reputation as an apologist for Pakistan is vividly chronicled even in the opening title sequence of Homeland. Whereas Hillary Clinton is shown with her famous "You can't keep snakes in your backyard and expect them to only bite your neighbors," admonition of Pakistan, Kerry is shown defending the country, saying "there are things that Pakistan has done, as complicated as this relationship is."

In the days following the Kerry-Raheel meeting, it became evident that there are still things that Kerry and his ilk in Washington hope Pakistan will do, as complicated as this relationship is, in return of course for more life-giving aid, sustenance, and military hardware. Within days of Sharif's return to Pakistan, its military took out two prominent terrorists, including al-Qaida fugitive Adnan el-Shukrijumah (who had been on the lam for more than a decade) and Umar Farooq. In return, the US ordered the release of Latif Mehsud, the Pakistan Taliban's No 2 from a military prison in Afghanistan. Intelligence circles suspect the attack in the Army School in Peshawar is linked to this.

As far as the Indian side is concerned, all this is part of a continuing faustian bargain between US and Pakistan that will have no winners, only losers. The Pakistani DNA cannot be changed, even though the current situation offers a golden opportunity to change course. "External and internal shocks are often pivotal turning points encouraging countries to reorient their national security strategies," says Prof. T.V.Paul, an international relations scholar at McGill University and author of The Warrior State: Pakistan in the contemporary world. "But) it is hard to predict where this will lead, for an elite known for missing opportunities for change due to their narrow tactical as opposed to progressive vision on the future of the country."

Most US analysts too hold out bleak prospects of Pakistan revisiting its "good-terrorists-bad terrorists" policy. One exception: CNN's Peter Bergen, who described the Peshawar school attack as Pakistan's 9/11, recited the entire Pakistani military narrative of fighting terrorism, and wrote that "Today the Pakistani military understands that the Frankenstein that it helped to create must now be killed."

But Pakistan's own analysts were scoffing at the idea this would happen. "Pakistan's greatest enemy is denial," cautioned the country's former ambassador to US Hussain Haqqani, maintaining that the establishment, set in its ways, will not change easily. That became evident soon enough when it sprang 26/11 planner Zaki-ur Rehman from prison (ostensibly on bail), prompting Christine Fair, a Pakistan expert at Georgetown University, to note that even seasoned analyst such as Peter Bergen ''embrace rhetoric as fact.''

"Alas, the (Peshawar) attack — no matter how heinous — will not motivate Pakistan to abandon its long-held reliance upon Islamist militant groups," wrote Fair, reckoning that, "many tens of thousands of Pakistanis will die long before the army gives up its jihad habit." Under the headline "Crucible of terror threatening the world: How the future of Pakistan is getting darker," Michael Burleigh had this to note in the Daily Mail: "The venal political class in Pakistan has united in its revulsion at this latest atrocity, but by next week they'll be back to their old ways." It didn't take so long. Less than 48 hours elapsed between the Peshawar bombing, Lakhvi's release, and his temporary re-incarceration after a mostly Indian outcry.

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Malik Ishaq, dreaded chief of banned LeJ that has carried out attacks on minority Shias and the mastermind of the assault on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009, has been released after three years in jail with the Pakistan government not seeking an extension of his detention.

Ishaq has been under detention for the last three years under a public security order for making "provocative" speeches.

The government had detained Ishaq under Maintenance of Public Order (16 MPO), the same law under which key planner of 2008 Mumbai attacks Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi is being held after being granted bail by an anti-terrorism court.

The supreme court had granted Ishaq bail in July 2011 after which he was held under 16 MPO.

Ishaq's release comes even as the government considers "radical changes" to tackle militancy after the Taliban school massacre in which 148 people, mostly children, were killed in Peshawar.

Ishaq's release comes despite Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's pledge to eradicate the "cancer" of sectarianism.

India joins elite club with heliborne geo-survey capability

India on Wednesday became only the seventh nation to own a heliborne geophysical survey system (HGSS), which has been integrated on the advanced light helicopter's (ALH) latest version — Garuda Vasudha. 

The ALH, which is the brainchild of the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been integrated with HGSS procured from Pico Envirotec Inc, Canada. 

The chopper was officially handed over to the Geological Survey of India (GSI), a body responsible for conducting geophysical survey under the ministry of mines and it costs Rs 73-crore. Although basic aircraft was delivered to the ministry of mines as early as in 2009, it took HAL and the GSI five years to procure and integrate the HGSS. 

"Only six other countries, Australia, UK, the US, South Africa, France and China have this. This will help us go beyond traditional methods of conducting geophysical surveys and will help us map our resources better," S K Wadhawan, Director General, GSI said. 

HAL Chairman R K Tyagi, while pointing out that Garuda Vasuda is equipped with state-of-the-art latest magnetic, spectrometric and gravity heliborne geophysical survey systems, said: "What we have handed over today is not just a copter but a dream." 

"For instance, India's net petroleum products import for 2012-13 was 137.35 mt costing Rs 5.34 lakh crore and if geo-survey benefits by one per cent, it would amount to reduction of import by Rs 5,000 crore," he said. 

Wadhawan said that this was as part of the GSI's modernisation plan, which had seen a ship to detect minerals under water — Samudra Ratnakara — commissioned in October last year. "We are also in the process of modernising our labs," he said. 

Besides the handing over of the Garuda Vasudha, the foundation stone of a Centre of Excellence Laboratory building of GSI, to be set up here was laid on Wednesday. 

Lot of surveying to be done 

The HGSS commissioned on Wednesday will have its first task at Hassan, where the chopper will look for copper, officials from the GSI said on the sidelines here. 

R Sridharan, Secretary, Ministry of Mines said that India, unlike countries like Australia which have completed 100 mapping of their resources, has a long way to go. "Only ten per cent of our country is mapped. We have a long way to go, and systems like these would help us expedite the process," he said. 

Garuda Vasudha is equipped to provide high resolution images, and has the ability to catch mineral signatures even 300 metre below the earth's surface. GSI, which has been using fixed wing aircraft for aerial surveying used to hire services from foreign countries for heliborne survey.

"This is the beginning, based on our experience and future requirement, we may go in for more of such helicopters," he said. 

Mission to Mars Launched

A day after the last of Diwali rockets was fired in this part of the country, "the big one" blasted off from the first launch pad in Sriharikota on Tuesday afternoon, firing the ambition of a nation, and the imagination of many others. About 45 minutes later, whenPSLV-C25 had injected the Mars orbiter spacecraft into an Earth orbit, the first phase of India's first Mars mission was pronounced a success. 

"I am happy to announce that the Mars orbiter mission first phase is a success," said Indian Space Research Organization chairman K Radhakrishnan. About 90 minutes after a drizzle raised minor concerns about weather among lay people, the 44.4m PSLV-C25 carrying in its head India's first Mars orbiter, lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at 2.38pm. 

Drowning the cheers at the mission control, about 7km away, and the nearby media centre, the rocket rose to the sky with a roar, spewing fire and smoke. Soon it disappeared into the clouds, only to re-emerge after a few second to another round of applause.

The nail-biting — albiet expected — phase came soon after the third stage of the rocket burned out, and the blip on the tracking screens disappeared. As Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan had explained earlier, the rocket would be on a coasting phase for almost 25 minutes, 10 minutes of which was a "total blind phase." The mission control witnessed some silent moments during this period. And, when mission director P Kunhikrishnan reported that the first of the two ships in the south Pacific Ocean had tracked the rocket, the scientists' faces lit up.

 

'Bigger challenges ahead' 

About 35 minutes into the flight, the rocket was cruising at an altitude "slightly higher than the expected trajectory," as a scientist put it. "But it will self-correct its course," he assured. And correct it did, after the fourth-stage engine fired on its own, bringing the rocket back to life. Soon, the orbiter was injected into an elliptical Earth orbit in what Kunhikrishnan called a "precision exercise." What follows in the next 10 days would be six crucial "orbit raising operations," in the wee hours of November 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 16. 

And then, at 12.42am on December 1, the orbiter will leave the earth's orbit for a 300-day journeyto the red planet. "It's only the beginning; bigger challenges are ahead," said the Isro chairman. "We expect the orbiter to be in Mar's orbit on September 24, 2014."

 Before India, five nations have launched Mars missions. So, is India trying to be an also-ran? Why is India trying to boldly go where many have gone before? The answers lie in India's rightful ambitions to remain in the select league of space-faring nations, mankind's unending quest for the unknown, and a bit of business.

When uncertainty fuels curiosity

Just because the previous Mars missions did not find anything conclusive about methane or water or other indicators of life doesn't mean that the Indian mission may not find any. Critics had put forth a similar argument when India was preparing for Chandrayaan-1, but the moon mission found something even men who walked on moon could not: moisture in the polar region of moon.

The same logic works here. If the Indian mission finds methane or new patterns of deuterium that suggest early presence of water, it would change the way earthlings see Mars and other planets. "Some say why spend Rs 460 crore on this mission. Such simple economics don't work here. You never know if we may find something that's worth much more than that figure," says Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan.

Uncertainty, as much as curiosity, has been at the core of every scientific exploration. Isro satellites programme director Mylswamy Annadurai calls the Mars orbiter mission a logical progression of the moon mission. "We are relaxed and confident, but then anxiety is a human trait. People who ask what we are going to fi nd would understand that not finding something is also a fi nding, a discovery that something is not there," he said.

Previous missions and groundbased calculations have found methane in Martian atmosphere, but none have been able to conclude if they definitely indicated early life. This is because methane could be of geological as well as biological origin. Whatever the source, finding methane — which one of the five scientific instruments on board the Mars orbiter would try — would add considerably to research on the red planet. The Lyman alpha photometer, meanwhile, would be looking for abundance of deuterium and hydrogen in the Martian upper atmosphere, which are indicators of early possible existence of water.

A point to prove

Will the Mars mission do all this? Nobody knows for sure. The Isro chairman is not apologetic when he says this mission is 85% a technology demonstration and the rest scientific quest. This means that India has to demonstrate — however late it is — its interplanetary mission capabilities to retain its place in the spacefarers' club.

"This is our first step in the field," says Radhakrishnan. "We have to take this step before bigger steps." He adds that only 21 of the 51 missions by the US and Russia/USSR have been successful. "That speaks of how complex the mission is. Getting the orbiter to go around the Mars itself would be a mark of success." Isro is confident of remaining in Mars orbit for about five months.

Money matters

Such missions boost Isro's capabilities and credibility so much so that more nations turn to India for their space missions and collaborations. A successful — or even attempted — Mars mission will boost Isro's image, and Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of Isro, can well be a money-spinner.

India's Mars mission is a major step forward in exploring the solar system that was completed by Indian scientists in just 15 months, said the euphoric scientific community Tuesday.

India is the first Asian country and the fourth entity after Russia, the US and the European Space Agency (ESA) to leap into interplanetary space with an exploratory mission to Mars, about 400 million km from planet Earth.

Amitabha Ghosh, chairman, Science Operations Working Group - Mission Operations at the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Mission, said it's a significant milestone for India.

"It is important to develop capability and also try to do something unique and not something done before. The real moment for India will come when it enters into Mars gravitation," Ghosh said.

Renowned space scientist K. Kasturirangan commended the way Indian scientists were able to complete the mission within 15 months of the announcement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

"I think first of all given the 15 months' time to take the mission to first level is something unbelievable for space programme of this level... something we all should be proud of," Kasturirangan said.

"It will become an important milestone for India when it completes 300 days and enters Mars orbit," Kasturirangan said.

Mission director P. Kunhikrishnan said: "With the precise injection of the spacecraft in the desired initial orbit, the crucial part of the mission for its long journey to Mars has been achieved. It is the 25th mission of the PSLV rocket."

Professor Yashpal, founding father of ISRO, lauded India's effort to chart its own path by launching the mission and not following others.

"There are a whole lot of programmes going on in the ISRO and the best part is that you are making your own path and not following anyone else's," he said.

Professor U.R. Rao, who had conducted the feasibility study of the Mars mission, said: "It is indeed a great day for India as something that has gone out of our own cradle. I can proudly say India has become mature. I hope we get very good results."

"I was talking to some scientist friends in the US and they told me why Indians are shouting about Rs.500 crore spent on the mission, it is the biggest day for the whole of India."

"Indians can be proud after spending Rs.5,000 crore on Diwali firecrackers, which don't go beyond 10 metres and with Rs.500 crore, we are going to Mars," said Rao, former ISRO chairman.

The spacecraft will enter the Martian orbit in September 2014.

Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre director S. Ramakrishnan said: "It is a historic mission. The PSLV has again proved to be a reliable rocket with a text-book launch, which is the first step."

Mission's authorisation board member M. Chandradatan said: "It is an excellent mission, with the team work of all ISRO centres as it had a very complicated design. We have achieved the first important step in the long mission and getting into the Earth's orbit."

Former Space Commission member Roddam Narasimha from Sriharikota told IANS: "It is a distinct forward step and India is working towards a new horizon in exploring the solar system. We have only seen the first phase of the project and have to wait for over nine months to watch from Earth before the spacecraft reaches the Martian orbit."

In the press conference that followed soon after the Mars orbiter launch, a foreign journalist asked what has now become a routine question: why should India send a mission to Mars when millions are in poverty? Isro chairman K Radhakrishnan told him about the benefits of the space programme, but the journalist persevered. Benefits of the space programme are evident, but not so much the benefits of going to Mars, especially for the poor.

Radhakrishnan then talked about how not going to Mars will make Isro rapidly out-of-date with technology. It is not clear whether all the hundreds of journalists assembled at Sriharikota were entirely satisfied.

The Mars mission is not an isolated mission for the organisation. Isro, or any organisation worth its salt, never plans isolated missions. Every programme feeds into another programme, and technology developed for one mission is used for another. This happens so frequently that it rarely makes sense to focus on individual missions and question their validity. Space technology is as inclusive as any other. The Mars mission will feed into subsequent missions of Isro. For engineers, this fact is as obvious as daylight. However, there are subtleties that are not so obvious to the public, and they need to be stressed.

With the launch of the Mars orbiter, Isro has taken a few step-ups on the complexity ladder of space technology. Learning to handle a complex mission has its spin-offs in every area of life and business.

Isro has yet to master the geostationary launch vehicle and its difficulties, a task that could take several years or even a decade, but it has also to look ahead after the GSLV. Going to the moon or planets bring on a new set of challenges, and the development of a new set of technologies. An organisation that does not develop them will soon fall behind in space technology, no matter how good it becomes on sending satellites into earth orbit.

Even without a geostationary launcher, a class of vehicles all other countries use to send satellites to Mars, this mission was no less complex for Isro than it was for other countries. It is not a trivial fact that two-thirds of all Mars missions have failed. Using a smaller rocket, even when as well-tested like the PSLV, does not make the mission any less sophisticated.

In fact, it has probably made it more complex, as Isro also made it in quick time with very little money. The low energy budget introduced new complexities. The changing weather gave it another dimension.

Alarge vehicle and its satellite together use every kind of technology imaginable. It needs the right configuration of the vehicle. The PSLV is now a mature design, but consistent manufacturing is always a challenge. So is testing. More than anything else, integration is different and difficult for each mission. A small error, only a millimetre's difference in the size of a device, will lead to failure. There is some learning with each new project.

Finally, there is science to reckon with. Isro's mission is primarily a scientific mission. Mars is one of the hottest topics, if not the hottest, in astronomy today. Understanding Mars is key to understanding the Earth, its past and future. Mars may once have had life. Its conditions four billion years ago were good for life. In fact, it may even have seeded the Earth with life. Understanding all this is necessary to design the future Earth. We may one day need to even leave the Earth and live on Mars.

Science does not belong to the rich countries alone. When investing in science, it is hard to pick and choose topics according to utility. No one knows what will be useful.

India, being a large country with a large scientific infrastructure, has an obligation to invest in space science. This is particularly so because Isro's budget is frugal. The entire world can learn from India when it comes to low-cost space engineering. The Mars mission is a drop in the ocean when the total budget of the country is considered. Space has to move on.

Likening India's Mars probe to putting 'a golf ball from Tokyo in a hole in Paris', Chinese experts have termed Manglaayan's launch as "a great achievement" which if successful could make India the first Asian country to achieve this fete.

Indian launch should be interpreted rationally as "a great achievement" of India that also deserves applause from the rest of the world,Ye Hailin, an expert on South Asian studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciencessaid.

"Like the Chinese, Indian people have their space dreams as well. The Mars orbiter, if successful, will increase the human race's store of knowledge and change our life," Ye told state-run China Daily.

Official dailies here front-paged the successful launch of the India's Mars mission, focussing on India taking the lead inMars exploration over China.

Ye also said China and India may work together to explore space instead of being engaged in what was called "aerospace competition".

In his reaction yesterday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said thee outer space is "the common heritage of mankind" and the international community should cooperate to maintain the permanent peace and sustainable development of outer space.

Pang Zhihao, a researcher with the China Academy of Space Technology, said ultimate outcome of the current Indian venture remains to be seen, as the successful launch was only the start of a year-long mission.

"The difficulty of getting the orbiter into orbit around Mars is equal to hitting a golf ball from Tokyo into a hole in Paris," Pang said adding that China is ready to conduct its own exploration of Mars in the near future.

"The carrier rocket Long March 5, with its 25 metric tons of low-Earth orbit carrying capacity and 14 tonnes of geostationary transfer orbit carrying capacity, can fully sustain our own Mars exploration projects," he said.

Jiao Weixin, a professor at the School of Earth and Space Sciences at Peking Universitytold the daily that "with the mission launched within a very short period, India eyes the political influence hereby brought and intends to be the first one in Asia that orbits Mars."

The Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) on Saturday performed the last of the five orbit-raising manoeuvre on its Mars Orbiter in the early hours, raising the apogee (farthest point from Earth) of the spacecraft to over 1.92 lakh km.

"The fifth orbit-raising manoeuvre of Mars Orbiter Spacecraft, starting at 01:27am (IST).. with a burn time of 243.5 seconds has been successfully completed. The observed change in apogee is from 1,18,642 km to 1,92,874 km," Isrosaid.

In the series of five orbit-raising manoeuvre with a supplementary operation after the fourth one, the space agency had raised the apogee of the spacecraft to over 1.92 lakh km.

After the successful completion of these operations, the Mars Orbiter Mission is expected to take on the "crucial event" of the trans-Mars injection around 12.42am on December 1. It will reach the orbit of the red planet by September 24, 2014 after taking on a voyage of over 10 months.

Isro's PSLV-C25 successfully injected the 1,350-kg 'Mangalyaan' Orbiter (Mars craft) into the orbit around the earth some 44 minutes after a text book launch at 2.38pm from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota on November 5, marking the successful completion of the first stage of the Rs 450 crore mission.